JonathanMelhuish.com

The idea of “music like water” assumes that the lowering cost of distribution and widespread copying of digital music will force record companies to offer all of their content under some sort of low-flat-fee scheme. It is a concept that seems to have grown in popularity recently, but, like so many, Gerd Leonhard seems to have ignored history - and missed the point.

For technical reasons, the written word has been widespread on the Internet for much longer than any other form of media. Consequently, it would perhaps be fair to assume that is more mature - and perhaps provides some indicator of what is to come with images, sound and video.

The “music like water” makes the same mistake as looking at the Internet and seeing it as a cheap way to distribute newspapers. They’re not wrong - but it hardly describes the trend towards widespread publishing through blogs, forums, personal websites, social networking sites and so on.

I’d argue that we’re starting to see the same thing with music - and in a limited way, YouTube is showing how it can happen with video too. Those predicting that the internet will just make music so cheap that it’s almost free are missing the point and ignoring the real revolution that’s just starting to happen. Again.

This was also posted to the New Music Strategies forum.

I think manufacturers should start putting infrared capabilities back into mobile phones. “But infrared is crap, you have to keep both the devices pointing at each other in order to transfer data!”. Exactly. So maybe just swap Bluetooth IDs over infrared, then automatically offer your business card to anyone you successfully connect with. Because at the moment nobody actually uses Bluetooth to swap contact details - it takes much longer to scan for the device (if they’ve even got Bluetooth enabled), accept the transfer, etc. than to just tell them your number and get them to give you a dropped call. Which is a shame, because I include almost all my contact details (website, MSN, etc.) in my business card, which makes in much easier for them to get in touch - and hopefully makes it more likely that they will. Okay, so maybe girls never call me for other reasons, but you take my point.

Attaching a name (or even better, image) to a Bluetooth ID is also useful, as your phone could provide a useful alert when they are in the vicinity.

Oh, and if somebody from Nokia is reading, I’d love to work for you.